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XORG.CONF with ATI Driver Problem

I'm on a Dell Optiplex 755 using an ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT and two Dell 1908WFP monitors. The OS is RHEL5, kernel 2.6.18.el5PAE. It's on an isolated lan.

The driver file I'm using is 'ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run'. The installer runs without error; fglrx-install.log shows that the kernel modules generate without any problems. Afterwards, I run the fglrx install shell as instructed, and then run aticonfig --initial. After a log out and login, I run the ATI Catalyst Control Center and set the monitors up for a big desktop spread, and after another logout/login, everything looks good.

Here's where the problem comes in. When I reboot the computer, the display goes black, and the only way I can correct it is to force a reboot, bring it up in single user mode, and either delete xorg.conf or modify it to use the vesa driver instead of the fglrx driver.

Not having a "Screen0" LeftOf "Screen1" setup in xorg.conf isn't important right now. I'll settle for even a single display after a reboot.

XORG.CONF with ATI Driver Problem

More info - depending on how I try to boot up, I get different results. If I telinit 6 or shutdown -r, the display comes up black with no mouse cursor, and I can't determine what state the display is in, whether it's big desktop or not. If I boot up in single-user and X -config /etc/X11/xorg.conf, I get a black screen, but I get an "X" mouse cursor and can see that the displays are set to big desktop (left and right). If I boot up in single-user and run startx or do a telinit 5, I make it all the way to a great-looking desktop, but it starts all over as soon as I reboot.

I know, you're all saying "if it hurts when you do this, don't do it."

Xorg.0.log doesn't show any errrors at all. Everything is reporting successful initialization. Just some warnings about the AIGLX 3D driver near the end of the log that I would think shouldn't be causing the display to go black.

XORG.CONF with ATI Driver Problem - SOLVED

No, that wasn't it. Turning off DRI turned off the ATI graphics acceleration, so fglrx went back to using the Mesa driver. After wasting another day trying out all the xorg.conf options I could possibly think of, I gave up.

Solution: I bought a EVGA e-GeForce 8600 GTS for $90 with a $45 mail-in rebate, downloaded the 'NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.22-pkg1.run' driver installer, and had it up and running within minutes. Comparing the performance to the ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT, glxgears ran over 300% faster on the 8600 GTS.

Glad you got it sorted in the end, just caught your thread now. I have always used nVidia or Intel where possible to avoid the ATI problems. Hopefully the new RadeonHD drivers will yield better results for ATI users in the future